Local Souls Author:Allan Gurganus Allan Gurganus brings the twisted hilarity of Flannery O?Connor kicking into our new century in this literary event of 2013.Offering his first book in a decade, Allan Gurganus returns us to Falls, North Carolina, mythic site of his immortal Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. With three linked, darkly funny novellas, Gurganus charts the o... more »ld habits?adultery, obsession, incest?still at large in his New South, a Winesburg, Ohio with high-speed Internet. In ?Fear Not,? a banker?s daughter seeks the child she forcibly relinquished at birth. In ?Saints Have Mothers,? the disappearance of a high-school valedictorian shatters the town, creating a cult led by her stricken mother. In ?Decoy,? the eroticized friendship between two married men is tested at last by a devastating flood. Gurganus finds new pathos in old tensions: between marriage and Eros, with gigantic hopes battling small-town conventions. Told with comic brio and deep sympathy, Local Souls is a universal work about a village. Its black comedy leaves us with affection for its characters and an aching aftermath of human consequences.« less